Crédit Mutuel is deploying a strategy to diversify the services provided to its customers/members (banking, insurance, personal services, cars, telephony, etc.). This strategy is based on autonomy and responsibility in individual decision-making. It requires constantly renewed and recognized skills to be able to analyze and propose suitable solutions, in accordance with the regulations in force. Crédit Mutuel has set high targets around employability, with an emphasis on promotion and mobility within highly decentralized companies that continue to recruit heavily.

In 2016, this led the Crédit Mutuel division to embark on a certification process for certain benchmark jobs to increase the visibility of the skills acquired by employees and recognized throughout the country.

The objective is also to enable our employees to obtain a qualification for their skills that is recognized outside of their work division, particularly through work experience accreditation. In the long term, partnerships will be created with universities to build links with other forms of certification so that employees with certification from their division can have their qualifications recognized at a more global level.

Such recognition will help to secure career paths and develop our internal retention policies while also supporting the development of skills that are relevant to current and future professions.

Finally, pursuant to a decision by the national joint employment councils (Commissions Paritaires Nationales de l'Emploi - CPNE), the certification levels established by the Crédit Mutuel division are open to all of the group's 83,000 employees from its various divisions: Crédit Mutuel, banking, financial companies, insurance, real estate, etc.

In this context, a first Professional Qualification Certificate (Certificat de Qualification Professionnelle - CQP - in French) for professional client managers, referred to as CCPRO, (tradespeople, retailers and independent professionals) was registered with the RNCP (national directory of professional certification qualifications (code 31919) - in French in December 2018. More than 400 professional client managers have obtained this certification since 2018.

The Professional Qualification Certificate (Certificat de Qualification Professionnelle - CQP - in French) for corporate client managers, referred to as CAE, was registered with the RNCP (code 34763) - in French in July 2020.

Three CQP are intended for registration:

• Retail customer manager (CCPART) - Level 5
• Wealth management advisor (CGEST) - Level 6
• Branch manager (DA) - Level 7

One "Digital Passport" professional digital skills certificate is intended for registration in the Specific Directory.

The aim of the Crédit Mutuel Foundation, created in early 2009 under the aegis of Fondation de France, is to support projects and organisations in all areas of public interest, in France and around the world. It works to promote reading and the French language, with a focus on combating economic and social exclusion.

Its initiatives, carried out at the local, regional, national and international level, take many different forms, including support for associations, schools, events, institutions, etc., creating programmes and awards, advising associations, providing fundraising advice, and so on. Its work covers the following areas:

READING, PREVENTION AND MEDIATION:

• preventing illiteracy,
• raising awareness of reading and books from a very early age,
• teaching reading through Lire la Ville, its environmental literacy programme.

READING AND INCLUSIVITY:

• fostering the social inclusion of people in difficulty,
• providing routes into work for the long- or short-term unemployed through the learning of basic skills,
• combating illiteracy.

EVENTS AND PRIZES:

• supporting events on reading and literature,
• sponsoring reading prizes,
• developing the Crédit Mutuel Foundation award.

Note that at the request of Crédit Mutuel’s bodies and under programmes decided by the regional federations, the group can take exceptional initiatives as part of its support of major causes – Haiti earthquake relief being an example. Within this framework and in response to emergency situations, the Foundation can provide support to countries affected by natural disasters and climate or health crises, etc.